Electronic data interchange (EDI) is one of the ways businesses use for exchanging computer-to-computer business information based on approved formatting standards and schemas. For example, millions of companies around the world transmit data associated with business transactions (e.g., purchase orders, shipping/air bills, invoices, or the like) using EDI to conduct commerce.
In a typical EDI transaction model, a large business entity or an EDI integration broker trades with numerous partners and has the technical capability to handle numerous EDI transaction data in various EDI formats and schemas. These entities, also known as “hubs,” transact with one or more suppliers, also known as “spokes”. Each of the spokes typically is a relatively small business entity that is only capable of dealing with one hub.
Before the spokes attempt to initiate transactions via EDI with the hub, the hub typically transmits various EDI schemas to the spokes so that the spokes may properly format the EDI transactions according to the EDI schemas. Currently, EDI schemas are large in size and the file size for each EDI schema typically ranges from 1 MB to 3 MB. In addition, the hub or large trading partners customarily transmit a large amount of schemas to the spokes, without taking into considerations of the spokes' lack of hardware capability. As such, thousands of such schemas, which may occupy several Gigabytes in bandwidth during transmission, are transmitted from the hub to the spokes.
Occasionally, the hub transmits one or more descriptions of the schemas in a non-EDI structure to the spokes. For example, the description may be in a sample data/instance file or even be a text file written in plain English explaining and describing what type of information needs to be included in the EDI schemas. Other times the hub may send an existing EDI schema in a format such as an image file, a portable document format (PDF) file, or the like.
In order to begin transactions between the parties, the spokes typically need a translation program or a “document definition” program to define a schema in the proper format. Current systems typically use a number of techniques such as using metadata to define an EDI transaction set from the description. However, current systems are limited in defining descriptions of EDI schemas to certain formats, such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format. In addition, existing techniques commence the translation process by integrating a sample instance, such as the description, delivered by the Hub and a set of word documents that elaborate on the EDI connectivity. This need of multiple documents to define a document definition reduces the efficiency of conducting business transactions.